A plus for Chicago: IOC-USOC dispute has calmed

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Chicago’s Olympic committee certainly had to feel good about one question that wasn’t asked after presenting its bid plans Wednesday to International Olympic Committee members.

The ongoing revenue-sharing dispute between the IOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee did not come up, according to IOC member Gerhard Heiberg of Norway, who has been involved for three years in negotiations on this issue.

To Heiberg, that means the members have accepted the agreement announced in late March for a new framework to the negotiations.

‘I have not had any IOC member come to me and say, ‘This was not right. You should have done it differently,’ ‘’ Heiberg said Thursday. ‘On the contrary, they have said it is fine that this has been put off until after the [2016 host city] election on Oct. 2 so it doesn’t interfere, which is what I wanted to achieve. I haven’t had anybody talking to me negatively about this.’’
The fractious negotiations had become a negative for Chicago’s bid.

‘I can’t say [the issue] is off the table, but there is a confidence that [USOC chairman] Larry Probst and [IOC] President Jacques Rogge will resolve it,’’ Chicago 2016 CEO Patrick Ryan said. ‘I think the [IOC] membership has confidence in them.’’

There are two parts to the issue, which I have written about frequently over the past several months: One involves the USOC share of ‘Games costs,’’ which include things like anti-doping and competition officials. The other involves USOC percentages of the IOC’s global sponsorship deals (20%) and U.S. television rights (12.75%). Many IOC members are pressing the USOC to take smaller percentages, an idea former USOC chairman Peter Ueberroth rejected.

Animosity over the issue had grown a year ago, when Rogge said that ‘it is not morally acceptable that the U.S. does not take part in Games costs like the other [national Olympic committees].’’ Another IOC member, Hein Verbruggen of the Netherlands, called the USOC share of revenues ‘an immoral amount of money.’’

The March agreement puts off negotiations on the percentages for several years because many of the contracts do not expire until 2016 or 2020 and NBC holds U.S. rights through 2012. The Games costs negotiations are to begin sooner.

‘When we talked with the IOC, it was about having this issue neither benefit nor harm the (Chicago) bid,’’ USOC vice president Bob Ctvrtlik said Thursday. ‘The best solution was to take it out of the political bid environment, agree on a framework and a path forward for December.
‘We feel we achieved what we wanted, and the spirit of cooperation between the USOC and the IOC is probably at the highest level ever.’’
Heiberg said he hoped an agreement on Games costs would be reached before the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. A meeting is planned for the beginning of December.

Heiberg, Denis Oswald of Switzerland, Rene Fasel of Switzerland and Mario Vazquez Rana of Mexico are the IOC members involved. Probst is taking the lead role for his Olympic committee.

‘It is going to be difficult, as it has always been, but with goodwill from both sides, let’s hope we can structure something acceptable to both parties,’’ Heiberg said.

Heiberg felt the issue now is out of play as a factor in the 2016 election.

‘It was not in the picture at all [Wednesday],’’ he said. ‘Everyone has accepted that it has been postponed. I think I can say that with a clear conviction.’’

-- Philip Hersh